In recent elections new voting machines were used in New York to replace the older, more complicated, less reliable machines. But are the new machines actually an improvement? The old machines were described by Lynn Brenner for the New York Times as follows,

    “On its face, you read the candidates’ names, in columns. Each column was headed by the political party’s name. Next to each candidate’s name was a box and small lever. When you pulled the lever, there was a clicking sound, and an X appeared in the box next to the candidate’s name. If you had mistakenly pulled the wrong lever, or had second thoughts, you pulled it back. The X disappeared, and you could begin again. When you were satisfied with your selection you cast your vote by pulling the giant handle again. The X’s disappeared (ensuring its secrecy) and the curtain behind you opened.”

     These machines were known to break fairly often but the biggest problem with them is there is no paper record kept so there is no way to tell if a vote is miscounting (sound familiar?). So paper ballots invaded New York city in the past election. They are set up like the SAT, fill in the correct bubble, and don’t make any marks anywhere else on the page, then feed it into a machine that hopefully reads it correctly. As anyone who has taken the SAT can tell you, it is not an easy format to use as there are too many chances to fill in the wrong bubble not to mention who knows what actually happens once it is fed into a computer. Many voters reported having trouble understanding how to use and process these new ballots which can be partially accounted for by being new but may also reflect problems with creating user friendly voting systems. When looking online I could not find even one positive report of the new machines. For a state to spend 70$ million on something shouldn’t they expect a higher success rate? These new ballots will be used in all upcoming elections as well. The reviews may get better with time and practice however will it be worth the 70$ million? I’d say probably not. There must be an easier way to create a ballot that allows any person to pick between the available candidates and be assured that their vote will be processed and counted correctly and efficiently.